A rock box on the front of a tractor

[Bruce from Can.]

Always sounded like a good idea, yet an amusing idea at the same time. This is my rock box.

I have seen many 2 foot square steel boxes bolted on to the front of tractors, and while doing tillage if they came across a rock, could stop and toss it into the box. This is my rock box. A clapped out old loader bucket I keep around for this kind of thing. I got this bunch of rocks doing one pass on this 25acre field. When I bought this farm 12 years ago I got 10 loader buckets full of rocks off of the sale field. It seems the previous owners had an aversion to picking stones. I am definitely getting ahead of them. My home farm which I purchased 19 years ago was the same way, this year I didnt get half a bucket full from 47 acres. I like the self unloading feature of this rock box.

 

[Richard G.]

Bruce, ship them down here.
I got some projects to build out of rocks.
Richard in NW SC

 

[bmack95hd]

You beat me to it Richard. I could sure use them in a landscaping project.

 

[Richard G.]

I want to dig a root cellar into a hill and lay rocks for the walls and the front where the door will be.
Use to be apple houses around here dug into side of hills and a building on top of them.

 

[bmack95hd]

You can have them, my project is a year down the road.

 

[Geo-TH,In]

I bet rocks that size could damage equipment.

 

[Bruce from Can.]

Ill load them, you send the truck, and pay the cartage .

 

[Bruce from Can.]

Indeed they can do a lot of damage. And thats why I cant understand why anyone would just keep farming around the darned things.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

He thinks he's getting ahead of the rocks... Hilarious.

 

[Kow Farmer]

Hydraulic controlled rock boxes are the best ever. LOL Kow Farmer Kurt

 

[bweb]

Sounds like your yield is dropping. Time for more fertilizer?

 

[Hoofer B]

One neighbor never picked rocks. He always said that the small ones dint pay to pick, and the big ones were too heavy. He is not farming anymore. Bill

 

[casecollectorsc]

I pick the bigger ones, but on bean ground I use a roller to make harvest go nicer....

 

[Bruce from Can.]

Maybe head to the gravel pit and pickup some seed ?

 

[Geo-TH,In]

Rocks that big would work nice to prevent erosion or landscaping. Do you remember pet rocks? You might sell them as pets.

 

[RedMF40]

"We spent hours up on Rocky Top
Down in the Tennessee hills.
Ain't no smoggy smoke on Rocky Top
Ain't no telephone bills..."

I may as well live on Rocky Top, granite bedrock is a foot or so under my feet. All the wells had to be lined up in a row to take advantage of a fissure in the rock--even one for a house that's over a quarter mile away. My loader bucket is no stranger to rock duty.

BTW I used to sing that song back in the day, didn't realize Rocky Top was an actual place. Gerrit

 

[Tim(NY)]

My Dad had a rock box on his cultipacker and ones on his disc.

 

[stoughtonfarmboy]

I wonder if the term picking rocks is an upper midwest thing. We used that term in Sauk County Wisconsin, where I grew up.

Ken

 

[4xMF]

I have picked rocks every year since 1985. About the same amount every year. They keep coming up. I think they multiply in the ground.

 

[flying belgian]

like.

 

[NY 986]

I try to pick them every year as they keep popping. I think the next purchase may be a mechanical picker as I fall further behind. Anybody looking to build a cobblestone house. I've got what you need and cheap!

 

[dahlin]

Bruce happy you are getting your rocks off. It's not fun to catch one in the combine been there done that. Randy

 

[ss55]

Had a co-worker from east of Nashville, TN, he said his soil depth was about 24 inches and then solid rock. He needed a jack hammer to put in his mailbox post. Basements were not common in that area.

 

[jimtrs]

(quoted from post at 11:48:44 05/26/22) Bruce, ship them down here.
I got some projects to build out of rocks.
Richard in NW SC

You guys are funny!

Here in NH I could get that many fieldstones with about 3 or 4 scoops of dirt with my backhoe.

The good old Granite State

 

[big tee]

Bruce--You need to start deep ripping!!

 

[Russ from MN]

That was the common term for in MN too, one of my co-workers nickname was Rockpicker! He had long arms, said they got that way from picking rocks every year since he was 5!

 

[aFORDable]

That's amazing to us no rocks in soil farmers. The only rock I ever uncovered was plowed up years ago and was an Indian hewed out bowl used to crush grain. Are rocks in the soil a northern thing? No rocks in the soil in my area of W. Ky. They've got to be hard on equipment.

 

[37 chief]

I can say I never had to pick rocks. Dad's farm ground had no rocks. I have picked up plenty rocks mowing for others, just so I don't hit them the next year. Stan

 

[Philip d]

Ive done the exact same thing Bruce, I used to sow grain with an open station kubota M8200. Drill roll and pick rock in one pass. With an 18 run JD 8350 I could plant roll and pick 40 acres a day by myself. The trick was before you start off again after stopping to get a rock is to lift the drill and back up a few feet drop them go. If you didnt youd get a 3 patch the width of the drill that had no seed.

 

[greg oliver]

Bruce I had the same rock box as you have. I would put the tractor in low and pick away. Would have to adjust steering as needed. That was the good old days!

 

[caterpillar guy]

Most of the stone around here is pretty round for laying up a wall probably want some mortar to hold them together as you go.

 

[larry@stinescorner]

Dont need them anymore,,but used to use them!

Iput that one in,,it looks like a state?

 

[Traditional Farmer]

Seems they reproduce under ground in the Winter and the offspring come to the surface every Spring.

 

[Richard G.]

You are a craftsman for sure.

 

[WilBury]

Ha! Funny that tune Rocky Top should be mentioned. Just found a stray sheet with the lyrics in the ditch yesterday!

 

[560Dennis]

Nice to make something out of those

 

[SDE]

We put a few to many in the neighbors bucket. The tire blew before he got off the field.
On yesterday's bike ride, I stopped and picked a beer bottle out of a field. Why some jerk would think that a corn field is a good place for a dead one.

 

[retired farmer]

My x wife and I cleaned thirty acres like that. She sat in the bucket while I drove plowing. Cleaned an estimated two hundred ton of rock off the field in eight years.

 

[Leroy]

I call a 2 a small rock but even that size will destroy the cylinder in a combine, doesn't even take that big.

 

[Alvin 41]

Use to have rock box instead of weights on front of tillage and rotary hoe tractor and pick up a lot ,but went to full no-till about 10 years ago and seldom pick up rocks any more.